The purpose of this study has been to examine how the image of the gambler is described by studying a report published by Folkhälsoinstituet [FHI] and a number of chosen articles from the Swedish Evening Press. Discourse theory has been used both as theory, together with social constructionism, and as a research method. The main conclusions of the study are that three different discourses can be identified: the normal gambler, the professional gambler and the problem gambler. The image of the problem gambler is described as a deviant and problematic minority characterized by loss of control, irrational thoughts and dissociative behaviour. The construction of the problem gambler fills three possible purposes for the state: As a solvable problem to handle criticism against negative consequences of gambling, as an argument to avoid competition on the market and as an individual characterized by loss of control in order to legitimize and make the construction of the normal gambler possible..

The purpose of this paper was that through discourse analysis look at how gender and the equality debate is created between two head debaters and commenter's on a forum. We have used Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson´s (1999) theory about Established and Outsiders to see power struggles between groups in the debate. With Jonathan Potters analysis tools in his book Representing Reality (1996) we were able to analyze the debate texts. Using discourse psychology, we were able to see how people use tactical discourse in their texts to represent themselves and the world in different ways.

Thesis purpose: The purpose of the master thesis is to analyse the battle of meaning creation regarding the notion of smoking and to reveal the production of unequal power relations. The battle is fought by different stakeholders through means of language and the study focuses on the tobacco industry in Germany. Methodology: A critical discourse analysis is applied with a qualitative research strategy. Our data collection was inspired by grounded theory and is limited in scope through a relevant case within the context of smoking in Germany. Empirical data is collected by means of an internet based document study of publicly available texts.

Chile and Santiago are struggling with heavy environmental problems as a consequence of urbanisation and industrialisation. In the Santiago region the air is seriously contaminated and most of the rivers are classified as heavily polluted.The aim of this thesis is to survey the industrial fluid waste situation in the Santiago region and to make suggestions on technological improvements or process changes. The purpose is also to study five different enterprises more closely and to give more detailed suggestions for improvement. Another purpose is to summarize relevant Chilean legislation.Information, provided by the supervisory authority, about the release of industrial wastewater to rivers has been analysed. Deep interviews have been made with authorities and consultants.

This thesis analyzes the media debates generated by the election of Omar Mustafa to the board of the social democratic party, and the appointment of the conservative Minister of Labour, Elisabeth Svantesson. More specifically, the aim is to analyze newspaper material through a discourse analyze, to see if and how religious affiliation effects the possibilities to act as a political representative. Theories of othering and intersectionality serve as theoretical points of departure. Further, chains of equivalence from Laclau and Mouffe?s discourse theory are used to study how categories as ?us? and ?the other? are constructed in the material, and how these processes of categorization relate to the intersection of religion, gender and ethnicity.

This is a qualitative study designed to investigate how professional support group leaders talk about their role as supervisor of support groups for children and adolescents with problematic home situations. We also examine how these supervisors talk about the method they use and how they talk about the individual child. We have chosen critical discourse analysis to help us explore if there are different ways to talk about these territories. Our questions are:How does the support group leader talk about his role?How does the support group leader talk about the method?How does the support group leader talk about the individual child?The theories we have chosen to use in the analysis of our material is Aaron Antonovsky's Sense of Coherence and social constructivism.

A possible "discursive turn" is believed to have been observed within Swedish political science in later years. The purpose of this study is to examine whether or not such a turn has actually taken place, in order to further determine if a resulting theoretical homogeneity poses a risk to the ability of Swedish political science to identify and respond to its full width of possible research problems, and to determine its perspectives on both these problems and the results that are later communicated to the general society. To do so, the study poses the following primary research question:"Has a discursive turn occurred within Swedish political science?"This question is then broken down into two specified research questions."Has discourse analysis become a more common approach for doctoral dissertations in political science during the period of 2000-2013?""Have ideas corresponding with discourse theory become more common within doctoral dissertations in political science that are not pure discourse analyses during the period of 2000-2013?"These questions are then answered by examining all known 406 doctoral dissertations in political science published in Sweden during the 21st century up until (and including) the year of 2013, using two forms of content analysis, one manual and one computer-assisted. The study finds no clear evidence of a discursive turn in Swedish political science since the turn of the century.

The aim of this study is to analyse the sexual power relations in contemporary urban novels of Swedish female writers.I have identified a discourse in these novels as a heteronormative matrix which power is ruled by norms and assumptions about normality in both the heterosexual and lesbian stories. For this purpose I have related to Ivar B. Neumanns theory that individuals always find a way to confront the discourse by three different strategies. These strategies are used in my study as tools to organise these novels, because it is possible to see that the protagonists find at least one of these strategy?s to her protest.The first strategy I studied was the docile.

In this essay, I investigate the representations of poverty in two charity galas on Swedish television. Moreover, through a discourse analysis, I look at how the concepts of ?development? and ?poverty? are used in these galas. I have watched two galas from 2012; Tillsammans för världens barn and Humorgalan. The shows turned out to be quite different from each other, as one of them was problematizing the concept of ?poverty? more than the other.

The aim of this two year master thesis is to analyze how digital preservation is presented as a problem in the Swedish national strategy for the digitization and digital preservation of the Swedish cultural heritage. In order to study which assumptions about digital preservation exists within the strategy I apply the discourse oriented methodological tools presented by Carol Lee Bacchi, which focuses on discerning what problem or, rather, representation of a problem exists within a specific policy. This study is a post-structuralist discourse analysis. The main focus of the study is on what assumptions and prerequisites the dominating representation of the problem is based upon and how the representation has evolved. The main material of the study consists of public investigations conducted by the Swedish state, governmental propositions and replies as well as other public documents upon which Bacci's methodological tools are applied.Results show that digital preservation is primarily interpreted as a financial problem as the national strategy and its surrounding documents stress the need of cost-efficient solutions.

Research in the field of gaming and the gaming culture shows that the culture is characterized by sexism and hypermasculinity, however a majority of this research is conducted in an Anglo-Saxon context. Therefore the aim of this study was to elucidate the Swedish gaming discourse in relation to gender, gendered norms and stereotypes. We also sought to examine the relationship between the editorial content and the blog comments. The study was based on a critical discourse analysis with a gender perspective, applied to five Swedish gaming blogs. By implementing power theory and encoding/decoding theory, we have concluded that there is a discursive struggle, where one part of the gaming culture is characterized by male dominance, while the other part of the discourse is showing signs of resistance to this hypermasculinity.

Our essay focuses on media's coverage on the topic of overweight. We investigated how media portrays the picture of the ideal body and person and how the overweight person deviate from those pictures. We also tried to uncover how the media addresses specific types of subjects which we interpret to represent the normative way of being. From the way media presents their message we distinguished which subjects are being excluded. For this work we studied articles from the daily newspaper called Aftonbladet and a lifestyle magazine for women called Må Bra.

The aim of this study was to examine the existing discourse of youth robberies from year 2003 to year 2013 in DN and Aftonbladet. By using discourseanalysis as theory and method I have studied newsartikles from these two newspapers.The study shows that the portrayal of youth robberies is focused on the young muggers as a group and not as individuals. The groups that are mentioned are young men and women, children and muggers with another ethnical background than swedish. Girls, children and ethnical background are given more attention in the articles, and are portrayed as more problematic. The youth robberies are described as brutal and are focused on the young muggers as unrestrained, evil individuals with no future.The analysis also shows that a change in the discourse is taking place during the studied period.

In Sweden, prostitution is politically defined as a social problem, more precisely, as a form of male violence against women. The definition is distinctly manifested in the government bill Kvinnofrid, characterised by the unique Swedish law that prohibits the purchase of sexual services.This thesis examines how the Swedish solutions of prostitution are carried out. By interviewing central actors working with prostitution in different ways we aim to answer the question: What measures are taken to decrease prostitution and what implications does the Swedish solution have?The analysis is divided into two parts. First, we analyse the concrete measures taken against prostitution ? what is done, how, and why? Second, we analyse the complexity of prostitution measures by applying complementary analytical perspectives: the symbolic and the discourse perspective.The study shows that measures taken to decrease prostitution vary and depend on individual actors? understandings of the political definition.

AbstractEssay in political science, C-level, by Ellen Linde, spring semester 2007. Tutor: Susan Marton.?HIV and gender inequalities; a lethal combination? A study of the patriarchal dominance in the international discussion on HIV/AIDS?The purpose of this essay is to study to what extent a patriarchal discourse is present in the international discussion on how to best fight the spread of HIV/AIDS. To determine if a patriarchal discourse is present or not I have used a feminist theory on patriarchal dominance. I have concentrated on the United Nations resolutions about HIV/AIDS.